Public Employee Press

Union counters city’s new contract offer

The city modified its offer in the latest bargaining session for a new economic agreement.

The DC 37 Negotiating Committee met on June 3 with the city’s bargaining team. The union made a counter-offer, and it is now pressing the city for a new bargaining date.

“We are happy some progress was made at the latest session,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. “But we believe the pace of negotiations should be picked up. The city has projected that it will have a surplus in next year’s budget, so they can’t claim that the money isn’t there for a decent contract.”

The union and the city started negotiations in October, and the parties have met on six occasions. Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley headed up the city’s negotiating team at the June 3 session.
The current contract expired on March 2, but its terms remain in effect while negotiations continue.

“DC 37 has made it clear to the city that our union, which represents employees in every city agency, will not consider being treated differently from other groups that have settled in this round of bargaining,” said Dennis Sullivan, director of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept.

“We expect to be treated equitably and fairly, as the case has been in the past,” Sullivan said.

The union seeks what it describes as a “fair, equitable and living wage” in the new contract. Its demands include preserving health benefits and increasing the city’s contribution to the welfare fund, which covers union benefits, including prescription drugs.

Other demands call for the restoration of benefit modifications in a previous contract, the expansion of the dedicated leave program, and hikes in mileage and meal allowances.

The union’s negotiating committee, made up of the council’s 56 local union presidents, spent months coming up with the union’s demands after soliciting input from their activists and rank-and-file members.

The economic agreement covers about 100,000DC 37 members throughout the city. Besides members at mayoral agencies, the agreement covers members at the Health and Hospitals Corp., cultural institutions, the New York City Housing Authority, the Off-Track Betting Corp. and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

—Gregory N. Heires